'It's all God': Couple who survived Hurricane Helene by floating on couch praise the Lord
A North Carolina couple who survived Hurricane Helene by using their couch as a flotation device thanked God for protecting them and revealed how their faith has buoyed them amid the aftermath of the disaster that ravaged their community.
In September, the hurricane made landfall in Florida's Big Bend region before sweeping through Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia and Tennessee. Helene, which initially made landfall as a Category 4 storm, brought catastrophic devastation to communities in various states.
Howard Ray and his wife, Lisa, are amazed they survived after floodwaters swept through Pensacola and swamped into the trailer while they were inside. Yet they believe God enabled them to escape.
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“I just want people to understand that you can’t give up; you’ve got to push no matter what,” Howard told Queen City News. “I don’t understand. We shouldn’t be alive; there’s no way, it’s all God.”
Queen City News also shared a short video clip Lisa took with her phone of the now barren property where their home used to stand. When the water started filling the trailer with the couple still inside, Lisa thought they were going to die.
“The trailer started filling up, and it’s like, it’s like [God] opened a piece up and I just had to sit down on that couch, and we floated out,” she said.
As the water dragged the pair along the Cane River, they held onto the couch like a flotation device. The water line at this point was at least 25 to 30 feet above average, but the couple held onto their makeshift raft.
“While she was still on the couch, I remember just holding onto her,” Howard recalled. “And I remember her saying, ‘We’re going to drown.’ And I was like, ‘No, if we’re going to drown, we’re going to drown together.'”
Howard remembered floating on the couch for 400 yards before he told his wife to jump. After hearing her husband’s instruction, Lisa grabbed a barbed wire fence and used it to pull herself up. The sharp wire cut her hand, but they still used it as a lifeline, eventually taking shelter in a garage.
Lisa and her husband remained in the garage for a few hours and waited for the water to subside.
Howard, a lieutenant with the Pensacola Volunteer Fire Department, eventually returned to Pensacola to see how he could help.
“I walked back to Pensacola to go help my boys because I ain’t leaving my boys no matter how much I’m hurting,” he recalled.
Lisa was later hospitalized due to the cuts on her left hand, and the couple continues to heal from other wounds as a result of the disaster. During her hospital stay, Lisa learned that her friend, Michelle Quintero, who worked as a captain with the Madison County Sheriff’s Office, had died in the floods.
“I just collapsed,” Lisa recalled. “She was a good person; she’s a great mother. She had one grandbaby and one grandbaby on the way.”
Due to the flooding, Lisa and Howard lost their home and their cars. In the aftermath, they're working hard to get back on their feet. Despite what they've endured, however, the couple hasn't lost faith in the God Who rescued and provided for them in their time of need.
Pleasant Valley Baptist Church is using donations from a disaster relief fund to pay for the couple's stay at an Airbnb for the next year, Queen City News reported.
Two days after the storm, they were reunited with their dog, Saddi, who had been waiting for them next to the Jeep where their house used to stand.
While Lisa knows they're still alive because “God has a purpose,” she admitted that she is unsure of what it is. Her husband believes God saved them because of what they're doing now “shows people that there is a God.”
“I know I might have lost everything but that doesn’t mean that I stop and that I’ve got to quit and just give up,” Howard said. “That’s not who I am.”
Last week, The Christian Post interviewed a Christian chaplain with Cajun Navy 2016 assisting with the relief efforts in western North Carolina. The nonprofit, also known as Pinnacle Search & Rescue, is among several organizations that descended on devastated areas.
Chaplain Mitch Collier was critical of the federal response to the hurricane, claiming that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was especially slow to respond to the area. Collier, who has helped with relief efforts in almost every major storm in the United States since 2017, counted the destruction he witnessed due to Helene as the worst he has ever seen.
"It's been tough," Collier said. "Luckily, I have the strength of the Lord in me, because some people wouldn't be able to handle the things we've seen, some of the things we went through, some of the devastation that we looked at while trying to help people."
"God is good. God sent us up here. I found some people that God steered me to. One man told me that I saved his life. I said, 'God saved your life.'"
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
